Video about the new PS Audio FR30's was a hoot, but for unusual reasons

[JonMarsh]

To say that lately I haven't been following many things I usually pay attention too, like Boulder based audio manufacturers, is a major understatement. Fortunately I have stalwart friends like Steve Manning who will fill me in from time to time, just so I don't get completely lost from reality...

What? Huh? PSAudio making a speaker? Really?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpYAMfB318

Got to their web site to find out more about the FR30's. This video is about the installation visit for customer #2, in Missouri. I have lived in Missouri, when about 5 years old. Don't believe I ever met the gentleman receiving this pair of FR30s.

Why am I commenting about this video?

• He has a nice listening room setup in his basement, dual use, for both stereo and home theater- the god fearing old fashioned way, with a big screen and projector. Check...
• He goes to the same stores and uses the same wardrobe managers as I do... jeans... check. Carhartt short sleeve work shirt... check.
• The room has heavy acoustic treatments, especially at the front... check. More damping than the PS Audio guys like, but they've probably never designed a live end dead end studio, and don't realize you don't really want "ambiance" in the room, if you want to hear the recorded ambiance clearly... check.
• A prime decorating/functional upgrade was a host of guitar stands and guitars I recognize well... check. And own similar or the same.
• His seating setup was height adjusted to achieve a seated listening height of 42-44", a sort of standard for targeting seated listening position performance. Check...
• On naturally made acoustic recording (just stereo mic) even the PS Audio guys remarked on how they could close their eyes and hear the original acoustic space going tens of feet back behind the actual wall. Check.
• Compared with George Cardas, these guys had a really weak notion of the impact of room placement on boundary LF behavior, and whatever it was they did know, they had trouble articulating it in any quantitative or qualitative way to their customer.
• Near the end, they showed how the front panel sections can pop off, for access to the drivers. dual covers for the 4 eight inch woofers, and a single cover for the flat panel midrange and tweeter combination. This gave me a view of the midrange planar driver, which sure does look like the BG/GRS part. Interesting.

It's an interesting system and seems fairly well engineered, and has some basic adjustability in terms of aiming the mid/tweeter array to the listening position. Esthetics are personal, but it made a good first impression.

Of course, after seeing that video, and taking a look at the PSAudio web site, well, the old Klone Audio jokes and builds came to mind... and of course, at one time, I swore I would never "clone" anyone's speakers other than Avalon Acoustics, which I have a connection to. But, gee folks, could we extend that license to just "any other Boulder Colorado" speaker builder?

Or should I just bring in ET... though it's my understanding of his history, that he was never involved in the Klone Wars...

This is too similar in the bottom end (essentially identical) to a configuration I've already started working on, and with the concept of a two piece cabinet (check!) it would be easy to prototype the original concept and one similar to what they've got here...


Steve might not approve of this for SMJ, but maybe we can keep this just between me and some of you guys on the forum?

[Bear]

It's a beautiful speaker. Those look like 8" versions of the woofers from the Kii3.

https://www.parts-express.com/Peerless-SBS-160F35AL01-04-6-1-2-Aluminum-Cone-Woofer-4-Ohm-264-1564

[JonMarsh]

Yup, that does look like the SBS is the right series, but new versions- the older ones look pretty conventional.

Bit of a weird bird, if you look at the specs- relatively high Fs, about 9mm Xmax, very strange sensitivity and SPL response plot. Looks more like a sub driver.

[Carl V]

The drivers are all custom...whatever that mean these days. But they
are/were emphatic about the slow development process of said drivers.
And if I heard correctly the Lead engineer/designer comes from a speaker
designer family...Dad was with BG.(?)...but take that with a grain of salt.
My mind is addled lately.


Didn't at one time you and Tomas has some BG drivers hidden away for some
future Line Source?

[JonMarsh]

The drivers are all custom...whatever that mean these days. But they
are/were emphatic about the slow development process of said drivers.
And if I heard correctly the Lead engineer/designer comes from a speaker
designer family...Dad was with BG.(?)...but take that with a grain of salt.
My mind is addled lately.


Didn't at one time you and Tomas has some BG drivers hidden away for some
future Line Source?

You're probably thinking about the RD75 ribbon- T. Waale had a setup with those and Acoustat 2+2s, with a array of Panasonic ribbon tweeters. Using the RD75 as a midrange. I had a set of RD52's but sold them off.

[JonMarsh]

OK, I had a pretty tiring moving day yesterday with the trailer, so I'm going to let myself have a tiny bit of fun this AM before doing more of the same today...

I've been working on a new system design, which Steve's aware of, which is why he flagged the FR30 to me, because the LF configurations were basically identical- four 8" woofers and 4 10" passive radiators. The midrange and treble weren't remotely the same, but that's a story for another day. And I have a plan to change that... and drivers on the way or in hand. In fact, in poker terms, I plan to raise the stakes a bit.

But among the LF configurations "tested" in Unibox, here's the deluxe one in about 130L of total volume... a little bit bigger than the Isiris cabinet volume. This might be considered the "perfectionist" version... best extension, flattest in the mid bass, etc. This graph is with 50W per driver, which pushes them to a max of 2/3 the rated Xmax. So, some headroom is left.





And for reference, if we drop the power per driver to 1/4 watt, for a total of 1 watt on the bass system, we can see what I call the sensitivity curve.



It's pretty much right on target for my original planned value based on back of the napkin stuff, and coincidently, roughly matches the FR30.


Now, If we want to drop the enclosure volume a bit, I did those calculations too- and if you just don't want a 130L box, don't despair- this doesn't look bad at 100L...

But it's sort of what I call a "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" alignment, to borrow a turn of phrase from Rick Derringer. (that I know who he is probably dates me... just a tad!)

So, what we've got here is a 2dB lift centered at about 50Hz, with an F3 of 27Hz and an Fb of 26Hz. For the mid bass lift part of it, shades of Century 100's. On the other hand, the -6 dB point is almost an octave lower (about 24Hz, versus 40Hz)





Fun things to ponder the rest of the day.

oh, and about those stakes that need raising...

[theSven]

Are you creating something like the Bagby Testarossa with a Raal ribbon tweeter?

[JonMarsh]

Are you creating something like the Bagby Testarossa with a Raal ribbon tweeter?

No, not the case. The Bagby Testarossa, a 2.5 way with Satori MW16P woofers uses a RAAL 70-20-XR, which technically is an OEM tweeter and not available to the DIY market normally. Outfits that support that kit at retail cannot sell those tweeters separately. That RAAL has a special design for the coupling transformer so that one can realize a a 1.8 kHz crossover design with just a series cap. It is nominally available only to manufacturers and detailed information under a signed NDA. For proper functioning, one should select the low range driver to match up at 1 to 1.5 dB greater sensitivity than the 70-20-XR- because of the design, external attenuation of the tweeter doesn't work well.

What I have on hand is (IMO) the best part available from the standard series, the 70-10D with amorphous core transformer. This takes more parts to make the crossover, and the recommended configuration is for the primary side inductance of the internal step down transformer to be used as the shunt element in a LR4 crossover.

This will be a three way system. I have 10" planar midrange drivers "on the way" to evaluate. We'll see how that turns out. The original plan considered either the PuriFi midrange or the Eighteen Sound 6ND430. All on hand for comparison.

[theSven]

No, not the case. The Bagby Testarossa, a 2.5 way with Satori MW16P woofers uses a RAAL 70-20-XR, which technically is an OEM tweeter and not available to the DIY market normally. Outfits that support that kit at retail cannot sell those tweeters separately. That RAAL has a special design for the coupling transformer so that one can realize a a 1.8 kHz crossover design with just a series cap. It is nominally available only to manufacturers and detailed information under a signed NDA. For proper functioning, one should select the low range driver to match up at 1 to 1.5 dB greater sensitivity than the 70-20-XR- because of the design, external attenuation of the tweeter doesn't work well.

What I have on hand is (IMO) the best part available from the standard series, the 70-10D with amorphous core transformer. This takes more parts to make the crossover, and the recommended configuration is for the primary side inductance of the internal step down transformer to be used as the shunt element in a LR4 crossover.

This will be a three way system. I have 10" planar midrange drivers "on the way" to evaluate. We'll see how that turns out. The original plan considered either the PuriFi midrange or the Eighteen Sound 6ND430. All on hand for comparison.

I'm excited to see a build with a ribbon tweeter, I should hold off on guessing though. I clearly was out in left field again. My only experience hearing a ribbon tweeter was the New Form Research R645. Not sure what the version was, it was back in 2004 when I heard these. Way before I got into this hobby, but back then they were the best thing I had heard. My only comparison was MTX floor speakers that I bought.

Since I like to see the bigger picture... Is there a cabinet drawing yet what this is going to look like?

[JonMarsh]

Steve and I are discussing that and kicking around concepts. This isn't going to be a small system, of course, given the low frequency driver array. And we figure drawing a certain amount of inspiration from the "Aspen FR30" is not a bad idea... (maybe I'll have to persuade Steve that we can make "Klone Audio" a wholly owned subsidiary of SMJ... )

:rofl:

This is just a form factor concept that Steve came up with after our early discussions... no detail stuff like edge bevels or round overs, just the general form factor based on dimensional inputs from my earlier POC work on the LF section, plus what is needed for the midrange/treble cabinet.


Front View






Rear View






And, duly note that evaluating an upper end module with planar and ribbon drivers, means it will also have to compete with the better more conventional solutions- such as PuriFi, BlieSMa, Satori, and Eighteen Sound 6ND430, all of which are "on hand". The "conventional solution tweeter I've been favoring in the earlier stages of this project is the BlieSMa T25A. The B is nice, but I'm not convinced it offers a 2X value proposition to justify nearly 2x the price, given what can be done with the "classic" notch filter for the fairly high frequency breakup mode of the T34A. And the A version, like the A version of the T34, seems to have better extreme off axis response. But, never say never...

I also try to keep in mind that these days, the pocket books of our builders are impacted by many non audio matters...

[JonMarsh]

POC Planar crossover

well, instead of watching silly videos online during lunch, I thought maybe I should continue investigations- something like, a Proof Of Concept crossover for the possible planar parts, given that FRD files at 15 degree increments out to 45 degrees were available. This is not for the ribbon, but uses the same crossover frequency and filter type as the ribbon would use... of course, a variety of data issues will require updates, but, this is just POC for a nominal SPL...


For the system configuration I had in mind, it would be my usual self styled LR3 network for the midrange to woofer, proposing 450Hz, and an LR4 @ 2.8kHz between the midrange and tweeter, as the ribbon is designed for that crossover point and filter type. And the planar tweeter should be able to handle that, one hopes.

Its fairly straight forward, especially as there is no issue with Fs resonance to compensate with a shunt network.


Schematic





SPL graph with mid target




Not shown, the null was very deep and symmetric.


Power and Directivity





Looking forward to getting the move over and finishing the woofer and mid-tweeter test enclosures.

[5th element]

A while ago I saw a video on these with the main designer. He was talking about the drivers they were designing. As usual there was a large dose of audiophool marketing gumph that make your eyes roll but, one thing is for certain, the drivers are not basic Tymphany stuff like the Kii uses. They looked pretty advanced from what I remember.

[5th element]

Yup, that does look like the SBS is the right series, but new versions- the older ones look pretty conventional.

Bit of a weird bird, if you look at the specs- relatively high Fs, about 9mm Xmax, very strange sensitivity and SPL response plot. Looks more like a sub driver.

They are sub drivers

[JonMarsh]

I’ve seen/read some stuff about the woofers, too- like a double gap design. Shades of XBL2, which is a good thing when done right in my book.

I checked the tracking data, and the planar midrange and tweeter should arrive today. I'm quite curious to see how the data from them will look- the crossover POC above was done with the FRD data supplied by Parts Express. It will probably be a few weeks before I can get to that- too much moving logistics stuff to finish still.

[JonMarsh]

OK, just for fun, let's stir the pot a bit...

We have some new requirements... cut the LF enclosure volume in half. And since that's not going to be easy, don't worry too much about driver cost. Let's just see what we can do performance wise. The system I was originally working on with 4 8" woofers and 4 10" PRs was working on the concept of optimum performance relative to driver cost. Enclosure size was not a controlled parameter, except for the purpose of hitting performance goals.

Now it is.

I tried a few other combinations of woofers and drivers, but kept coming back to the concept for the new Modula PWB. Which is just a relatively small two way...







The high performance, but rather pricey, duo.








For curious minds that would like to know, that's about $1650 of woofers per cabinet, and $680 of passive radiators. Hmm, $2,330 per cabinet.

For reference, 4 RS210HF-4 comes to a bit under $600, and 4 RSS265-PR to about $450.

[JonMarsh]

UPS delivered some samples to play with next month.




The RAAL ribbons are at the house, from climate controlled storage last week.

[JonMarsh]

A couple of members have PM'd me about whether I've measured the 70-10D, or if I even had them yet!

(you know what they say about the internet- if there aren't pictures or video, it's not real...) (and even then, you have to be careful!). :rofl:


Well, like all RAAL ribbons, these babies are a bit delicate physically, and require some care in handling- note the magnetic protection strip which AFTER installing in the cabinet, one gently slips off the side- NOT peeling up direct from the front plate!




I have measured and verified the factory spec for the impedance curve, but I haven't done any acoustic measurements yet. In fact, I plan to have a basic test crossover in front of these at all times to protect from low frequency overload.

The built in transformer for the 70-10D is intended to be the final shunt indictor in an LR4 network, targeting 2.8kHz, so the actual electrical network is 3rd order. RAAL has a recommended range of values, but of course recommends to test in the application and adjust as needed. But is a flat LR4 going to do the trick? Both the published data (which is hard to read) and 3rd party measurements confirm the rising on axis response.

Let's take a look at that- I've created an "Augmented" graph by adjusting the background shade a bit and tracing over the fairly illegible original curves at 0 degrees, 30 degrees, and 60 degrees.



So, what is the "smart" thing to do with the network? I'm sure there are lots of opinions about that...

My opinions that a detailed analysis (by measurement) will show the weight of the power response in the 15-40 degree off axis response, and being a few dB hot above 10kHz directly on axis isn't likely to be a deal breaker. For those of you for whom that IS the case, well, you know who you are. I have very good measured hearing for someone my age, but I'm not sweating it. Maybe my wife will...

Given these points, my simple strategy will be to use an RC shunt network to tweak the impedance and divert some power from the primary of the transformer.

I'll setup the initial test network first with the ability to switch the shunt network in and out. It will look something like this...





Here is VituixCAD's simulation of that, compared with the target 2.8kHz LR4 response. What I expect I'll want to do is pull the 30 degree curve down from what's in the spec sheet to being flat. This shows a possible attenuation curve for the network.

[wolf_teeth]

No, not the case. The Bagby Testarossa, a 2.5 way with Satori MW16P woofers uses a RAAL 70-20-XR, which technically is an OEM tweeter and not available to the DIY market normally.

Actually, not quite. The TR is a TMM 2-way, not 2.5way.
Just for clarity,
Wolf

[JonMarsh]

Thanks! I wouldn't have expected that.

[JonMarsh]

PuriFi has shown their new 8" woofer, the PTT8.0X04-NAB-01 at the Munich High End show- and details are previewed on their web site.

Naturally, this led to some curiosity about how the parameters work out and possible applications. A review of specifications and some enclosure calculations for this application seems to indicate they've taken a different tack with this driver- high compliance, relatively low cone mass for the size, and a baseline sensitivity of 90dB even with 9.3 mm Xmax. One might say it travels farther into the long throw woofer zone than the subwoofer zone, as compared with the 6.5" drivers, which are known to work well in rather small enclosures, as regards low frequency extension.

Pursuing a similar alignment quality for 4 of these drivers as the previous examples, some notable differences emerge:

• To achieve an Fb in the range of the free air Fs, a significaintly larger enlcosure seems necessary- 170L ended up meeting the mark.
• Due to the interaction of driver parameters, to achieve a simlar target curve required doubling the nubmer of passive radiators. 350g total MMS still worked well, though a range of MMS and enclosure volumes were examined.
• This is a higher sensitvity driver, and per Hoffman's iron law, to achieve a given cutoff requires a larger box- but with double the number of PRs, it's possible to get about 6 dB more output at 200W total power at the low frequency range.

1 Watt total drive power





200W total drive power




At this time I don't know what the asking price for these drivers will be- but with the need to double the number of passive radiators, and increase the enclosure size by close to 50%, the cost impact would likely be considerable.

Interesting to ponder, but probably not very practical.

[Scottg]

Watching the Video..

I liked the clarity of the midrange and lower treble, but the upper-bass lower-mid. just sounded compressed to me (almost like it needed a LOT more power to get the excursion "going") - reminded me of the Centaur line from Apogee where they stuffed the hell out of the cabinet the midbass was in. Also, seemed a little "thin" (or lacking some baffle-step correction, though I'm sure there was baffle-step correction - just didn't seem enough).

It would be interesting to see how they dealt with the back-wave of the planars (..my guess: long "open" tunnel with about 2 inches of fiber on-walls). Note: Dan Neubecker's Echelon actually went open-back (after trying numerous solutions).

I did foresee one fairly obvious problem the new owner will have: those cabinets are SHINY and TALL, and even though they are black - light is going to reflect right off of the "inside" panels when watching video. Significantly. ops:

A design issue I had (just looking at it) was *diffraction. 8O

Aesthetically I'm not sure I liked the bottom (rounding) though I think it's "growing on me", but I do like the amount of space between the cabinet and the floor - not something you see on a floor-standing loudspeaker. There are of course larger stand-mounts, but they tend to be studio-designed. I do like the very monolithic aesthetic (diffraction-be-damned). :P



Anyway, cool thread and build! :T



*speaking of diffraction the Q Acoustics Concept 500's modest semi-round-over might work well with the overall aesthetic??? (..particularly looking at the transition on the top of the Q Acoustics cabinet as it might relate to the round-over bottom of the PS Audio.)

https://www.amazon.com/Acoustics-Concept-Floorstanding-Speaker-Silver/dp/B082J5R6W9

..you can actually see the round-over a little better in this video:

https://youtu.be/P27rz-6rL4I?t=305

[JonMarsh]

Watching the Video..


It would be interesting to see how they dealt with the back-wave of the planars (..my guess: long "open" tunnel with about 2 inches of fiber on-walls). Note: Dan Neubecker's Echelon actually went open-back (after trying numerous solutions).

I did foresee one fairly obvious problem the new owner will have: those cabinets are SHINY and TALL, and even though they are black - light is going to reflect right off of the "inside" panels when watching video. Significantly. ops:

A design issue I had (just looking at it) was *diffraction. 8O

Anyway, cool thread and build! :T


*speaking of diffraction the Q Acoustics Concept 500's modest semi-round-over might work well with the overall aesthetic??? (..particularly looking at the transition on the top of the Q Acoustics cabinet as it might relate to the round-over bottom of the PS Audio.)

https://www.amazon.com/Acoustics-Concept-Floorstanding-Speaker-Silver/dp/B082J5R6W9

..you can actually see the round-over a little better in this video:

https://youtu.be/P27rz-6rL4I?t=305

Good comments, Scott-

• Even with a high gain screen designed to minmimize the off axis scatter like the Black Diamond I have in storage to install in the new place, you still might have issues. Of course, a big sheet of thin black felt and some double sticky tape could solve most of that, but I imagine the new owner would be loathe to "modify" his new babies that way...
• Yes, I've read about backwave issues and different techniques with the planar midranges; we'll see if the ideas I have work out or not (tapered transmission line with heavy felt, and stuffed with long fiber wool)
• Oh yeah, I'd expect considerable diffraction issues with the cabints as built... but I'm also wondering how the bevels at the tweeter and midrange are impacting that or the overall behavior. With bits I have, I can duplicate what they have done, or implement some variations on the theme; a good idea they had was removable surface front panels. A number of topics to explore and address.
• I agree, the Q Acoustics 500 is a well executed system and do a nice job with the edge round overs. I'm inclined to think that is mandatory... and I have bits for that, too! Steve is the king of CNC, but I'm the prince of doing it the old fashioned way...

[JonMarsh]

Exploring some cabinet design issues with Shapr3D

Busy weekend working on the domestic stuff, BUT, I managed to squeak in a few hours on the M1 Mac Mini exploring some design possibilities for a "Klone Audio" concept build.

But, first a little introduction about 3D CAD stuff I've used, and am currently using.

Now, I'm generally a low budget queen (or king) when it comes to 3D CAD for speaker stuff, and have generally gotten good results with what I call a "family" of products that share a common heritage with the now departed firm "Concepts Unlimited". In fact, I have TurboCAD Pro on this computer, and have copies of Shark as well as ViaCAD (from Punch software) installed on other Macs. All of these have pretty decent modeling tools that I'm very familiar with; Shark is basically an upmarket version of ViaCAD, or vice versa, and they differ in things like rendering tools and some of the fancier file exchange capabilities. Of course, they differ in price too, with Shark being about 10x more expensive.

I have also used Fusion360, especially for the Kurosawa Dai Katanna project; Steve Manning lives and dies by Fusion360, especially for the manufacturing file interface. their prices (yearly subscription) have gone up quite a bit (doubled for hobbyist), and with so many other financial must do's the last two years, I have let the Fusion subscription lapse. Possibly not a wise move, but I can always go back if I feel compelled to...

Well, I have a sort of recent "benchmark" case come up- the ability to import a seemingly simple but actually complex STEP file. This is importing some of the STEP files generated in Fusion 360 by Marcel Batik, who does some very sophisticated yet elegantly simple work with waveguide/horn design.

https://at-horns.eu

The ST260 is one of the earlier designs, along with the baffle mount version, ST260/B. It's a nice design for 1" drivers, and Marcel makes the data files and STEP files freely available.









Now, this file imports fine into Fusion360, and my copy of Shark on the iMac Pro can handle it, too. But every other relatively "budget" 3D CAD program just locks up and crashes. I think, probably too many data elements for how their code is designed.


Enter, stage left, Shapr3D.

This is something of a maverick program, developed by a small (but growing!) firm in Hungary- originally just for the iPad Pro. And to do this, and have a solid core, though the started out with a different (I.E., more affordable) 3D kernel, they ported the Siemens Parasolid kernel to ARM. Yes, the same kernel at the core of many top flight CAD programs like SolidWorks.

They expanded this offering to M1 Macs shortly after their introduction (ARM based). Intel Macs can run it because of how Rosetta 2 works. And now it's out on Windows, also, though not quite with the full feature set- there's a LOT of very useful API's in MacOS that just don't exist on the Windows side of things, so they're working on writing their own code for Windows.

Recently they restructured their sales tier- previously there was free with limited capabilities, hobbyist with more capabilities but missing some things like the higher end file export capabilities and 2D drawings, but at a pretty reasonable yearly pricing, and Pro with the whole enchilada.

Well, they took the Hobbyist version and put in all the pro features, kept the price the same, but limited the license to running on just one computer. If you want to have two computers (at home or elsewhere) running it, you need to pay the low subscription rate for each computer. Then they have a multi-user license intended for commercial. My paid hobbyist license was automatically updated to all the big boy features, but if I want to install on my recent model Mac Pro, I need another license. Fairly reasonable, I think.

Well, anyway, about the first thing I did with the Shapr3D demo, before I signed up for any plan, before trying any design construction, was importing one of Marcel's STEP files.









Voila! OK, this got my attention.

So, spending some time on learning the software seemed like a reasonable use of time.

But think about this... the folks at Shapr3D completely rethought the 3D CAD process and interface- they had to, starting out with the iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil. They came up with a lot of clever stuff and innovations, like the adaptive menu system, for example, that just shows the commands and options available during any particular stage of work- this is a lot different from traditional 3D programs, so if you've grown up with them since the earliest days of AutoCAD (raise my hand...) this means there are a lot of mental habits and strategies to relearn. And that isn't necessarily easy. But it just may be worthwhile... juries out, but the case is developing in interesting ways.

[JonMarsh]

Concept options and constraints for the bass module cabinet.

What I've been thinking about in spare moments lately is the options and possibilities AND constraints for the two piece cabinet design- particularly with my favorite materials, LBL boards and maple ply pin blocks from Vanda King.

Another constraint that may have to be addressed is where to put the PR's... so many folks put them on the cabinet sides, sometimes even the front panels. I have this hang up where I find PR's on the sides kind of objectionable esthetically, and also, a possible issue when trying to move a heavy cabinet. Never say never, but for now I wanted to try to stay with PR's on the back.

So, let's enumerate my view of the material constraints. YMMV, of course.

LBL is easiest for me to source from Woodworkers Source, 12" wide boards 48" long, 3/4" thick, nice grain appearance, made from trips 3/4" wide. LBL ply is getting VERY difficult to source lately- at least where I live now (Idaho).

My favorite other material is maple ply, easiest to source as piano pin blocks. My favorite is the 563D, 59" long, 22" wide, and 1-1/4 thick. This was used in the Kurosawa build and for my Ardent D build. I really like it for front panels, and rear panels if you need to put in drivers or PR's.

The stuff is expensive, though, so using it efficiently is mandatory.

A quick back of the napkin calculation (I find paper towels hard to write on...) suggests that considering making front and rear panels in a "relatively" cost effective way suggests making the width of the overall system modules the same as the venerable Wavecor Ardent- 11-1/2". Then, for example, a 11-1/2" front panel and a 10" rear panel or inner front panel can be ripped from one 22" wide maple ply board. This is assuming the inner front panel and the rear panel are surrounded by LBL on the sides (with an underlayment of BB ply), and maple ply top and bottom.

Now, the use of PR's on the back is another constraint- this winds up dictating the minimum center to center spacing for the PRs and might as well do the 8" woofers the same way- my intention (if I proceed) is to put each pair wired in series in it's own sealed space with the corresponding PR's. The RSS265PR's are 10-1/2" in diameter, so I figured round it up to 11" for the CTC spacing.

For the RSS210HF-4, the provisional 8" woofer selection (still looking, haven't found anything better yet that fits my selection criteria) we're looking at an almost 8-1/2" frame diameter (close to the SW223BD02, but a Dayton based Ardent with, say, a 5" SB ceramic/aluminum midrange is a topic for another day...), so the rebate diameter chosen was 8.5", with a pass through cutout diameter of 7.3" (will clear the 185mm requirement by a few hundreds of an inch...)


Sketching out both top front panel and inner front panel resulted in a proposed 44" long panel for the "inner" front panel, and 46.5" for the "outer" front panel, which I envision (possibly) being bolted on to threaded inserts in the inner panel in multiple obvious locations.




The "outer" front panel concept drawing turned out like this:





And rear view:





Now, a few teasers about how different working with Shapr3D is.

• Unlike other 3D programs, there are no layers. I'm used to putting construction guides and notes on a seperate construction layer. For Shapr3D, the construction lines are integral to the intial drawing and how it interacts. They can be deleted; these are somewhat "cleaned up" versions.
• A lot of data on key items is intrinsic and available to veiew easily- for examle, here I've clicked on one of the initial linear dimensions, and most of the key dimensions are displayed; then hidden when you click in a blank area. The outer panel drawing was created from a version of the inner panel drawing as a starting point.
• Due to the iPad heritage, direct editing of parameters is widely supposed by the datapad that appears in relation to any selected item. But full parametric design is also supported, and the full design history is maintained.
• I decided to create duplicate versions of designs to use one as a revision step backup, so I wouldn't have to "undo" so many commands manually to get back to the same point. Different tools, different strategies.

Is this the way to proceed with a potential build? I don't know, but it gives me things to think about.

When things settle down near the end of the month, it will be time to create a multi-cabinet acoustic prototype to evaluate, using Denovo 1 cu ft cabinets (already on hand, some built). And work on the complete cabinet designs, including the top module.

Meanwhile, a small order of maple ply is on the way....

[Scottg]

I've recently been trying-out Shapr3D and uMake on the ipad pro. Neither was quite what I wanted but both having aspects I want.

uMake has *line correction and fairly easy multi-plane use, BUT it isn't a solid modeler - and while this isn't a problem as far as a finished solid model is concerned (..you can always export it to a mesh program), it IS a problem when it comes to "cuts": after a cut the various surfaces aren't always correct.

Conversely Shapr3D does NOT have line correction and multi-plane requires more "steps" to achieve, but cut's are flawless and have "positive" and "negative" options for the resulting shape. Shapr3D is also more polished with controls where you want them for most tasks (..like roundover/chamfers being an edge "touch" away). Still, it's almost 4 times the price for the subscription.

I've not tried it yet, but I think I'm going to go with Solidworks. (..and yes, regular Solidworks is very spendy - but that's not what I'm going for..)

Instead there is this: which is actually 3 different programs - a base of Solidworks with I *think* most functions that installs on Windows (or presumably Parallels for Mac), along with 2 web-based programs that should be every bit as good as Shapr3D (and because it's web-based you can use it on just about any hardware capable of supporting a modern web browser).

https://discover.solidworks.com/makers

-Half the price of Shapr3D is a definite plus. It is however a "hobbyist" license, and I think Fusion 360 is still free for their hobbyist license.



*Line correction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHcpxYPUl4

Here you can see that in Solidworks on a solid object's surface:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZo8CQvLzHU

and a bit more detail with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt_m9vaqyiI

IF you have more complex shapes, then it becomes extremely useful - after all you start with 2d lines/shapes and then extrude-out from there. Not a lot of reason for it though if you don't need more than the typical "line, rectangle, circle/ellipse, etc.".

[Scottg]

[LIST][*]Unlike other 3D programs, there are no layers.

I think Layers = Sketch Planes.

I believe you can stack multiple sketch planes on the same actual plane if desired (and because it's parametric, you can go back and forth between the sketch planes and edit/modify as desired).

Btw, if you are trying this out with mouse instead of pen and touch then you are probably missing-out on a good bit of the speed with which you can draft designs.

[JonMarsh]

True, but I'd be missing out on a 32" HDR display if I wasn't using my Mac Mini!

Different usage cases, different preferences, thanks for all the feedback and comments!

See, I'm dat old guy, and new fangled terms like "sketch planes" take a while to capture... but I'll look into that once the move stuff is finished up. Gave notice to vacate on the rental today for June 30.

[JonMarsh]

-Half the price of Shapr3D is a definite plus. It is however a "hobbyist" license, and I think Fusion 360 is still free for their hobbyist license.

No, I don't thing it's close to free. I was paying about $300 a year, which I was OK with, but they raised it to about $600. Farther down the road that probably wouldn't be an issue, but the whole relocation and house purchase thing has squeezed discretionary cash flow. My annual for Shapr3D was about $240.

[Steve Manning]

Fusion is still free for their hobbyist version, though it won't do everything like the full blown version, it used to. I guess they had large companies taking advantage of that and not paying a subscription like they were supposed to.

[Scottg]

No, I don't thing it's close to free.

Most of the payed version is in the free version.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal

[Scottg]

True, but I'd be missing out on a 32" HDR display if I wasn't using my Mac Mini!

Note: you might actually be able to maneuver-about better with a 3D mouse than with multi-touch.

https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402816382482-How-can-I-use-my-SpaceMouse-with-Shapr3D-

Also, because Shapr3D doesn't really rely on sketching (rather primitive 2D shapes), there probably isn't any significant disadvantage with respect to pen-use as far as sketching.

So with a 3D mouse? Who knows - maybe the Mac is the better platform?


..and yeah, I do have to wear glasses (2.5 magnification) to work on my little ipad pro. :P (..it's still pretty though.)

[Scottg]

Gave notice to vacate on the rental today for June 30.

8)

Congratulations!

(..I am of course assuming you will have your new home to move into by then.) :W

[JonMarsh]

Note: you might actually be able to maneuver-about better with a 3D mouse than with multi-touch.

https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402816382482-How-can-I-use-my-SpaceMouse-with-Shapr3D-

Also, because Shapr3D doesn't really rely on sketching (rather primitive 2D shapes), there probably isn't any significant disadvantage with respect to pen-use as far as sketching.

So with a 3D mouse? Who knows - maybe the Mac is the better platform?


..and yeah, I do have to wear glasses (2.5 magnification) to work on my little ipad pro. :P (..it's still pretty though.)

I'm trusting by "little" iPad Pro you mean the 12.9" version- I'm on my 3rd or 4th one of those, the others have become hand me downs- yes, have the latest. love it. It's one of my most used computing devices, partly because of the HDR screen, and partly as my main Messages communicator, but also for Apple News, which is better on that than on a Mac.

[JonMarsh]

8)

Congratulations!

(..I am of course assuming you will have your new home to move into by then.) :W

We closed on the new home fixer upper in mid March. (new construction) but since have been putting in a lot of work fixing up stuff before moving in, like the garage, and some paint and tile work that my wife wanted to do.

I've been sleeping still at the rental, Liubov at the new place for some time. Tonight is last night sleeping at the rental.

Fixing up is stuff like the garage....





I did an epoxy coat with hard clear coat on the garage floor, L-Bar on all the drywall bottoms, mudding the L-Bar and going over much of the original mud work, sanding (random orbital I use for cabinets, with vac hose!), two coats of PVA primer, two coats of Urethane Alkyd paint, and new lighting...

A neighbor had a specialist come in and do their epoxy coat- I spoke with a guy from the company before they left... $5 per square foot. 600 sq ft. 3 man crew. Did it in one day. If you have the money to spend, that's the way to go, I suppose! We had a budget for the cash purchase of the house, and broke that slightly- still planned on some sweat equity items.

[Scottg]

I'm trusting by "little" iPad Pro you mean the 12.9" version- I'm on my 3rd or 4th one of those, the others have become hand me downs- yes, have the latest. love it. It's one of my most used computing devices, partly because of the HDR screen, and partly as my main Messages communicator, but also for Apple News, which is better on that than on a Mac.

:yesnod:

(2021)

It's not great for responding to forum posts without a keyboard, but reading them is excellent. I keep waiting for the pencil 3, but after a year plus I just purchased a knock-off for about $25. Seems to work "OK" and should hold-me-over until the pencil 3 comes out. BTW, I can highly recommend the Japanese Bellemond brand screen protectors, specifically this one:

https://www.amazon.com/BELLEMOND-SET-Protector-compatible-WIPD129PLK/dp/B08VHRDH27

..adds some texture and reduces some glass reflections while doing very little to reduce clarity. Good stuff! :T

[Scottg]

I did an epoxy coat with hard clear coat on the garage floor, L-Bar on all the drywall bottoms, mudding the L-Bar and going over much of the original mud work, sanding (random orbital I use for cabinets, with vac hose!), two coats of PVA primer, two coats of Urethane Alkyd paint, and new lighting...

Garage looks good, particularly the Garage floor - like a speckled ice skating rink.

[Scottg]

On the topic of HiFi show speaker introductions:

While Monitor Audio has an interesting design:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/a9V56YiSnQJoYXAeKSYAQJ-970-80.jpg.webp

These had that large chamfer design that seems like Jon-designed speakers (..or if it's all shiny black - Evil Twin designed speakers):

https://youtu.be/m-oCHGZ14rk?t=360

-facetnating.

[JonMarsh]

Hey, I think you’ve coined a new world we need to remember!

And those new Monitor Audio speakers are quite a departure from what I’ve seen of their past efforts!

[dwk]

Those Monitor Audio speakers are using a Legacy-style circular array of tiny mids around the tweeter to make a pseudo-coaxial design (flat diaphragms, so may be BMRs but it's not clear). They've obviously been designed to make an aesthetic statement, but it looks like there are real attempts at controlling the radiation pattern in there, too.

https://www.monitoraudio.com/en/concept-50/

[JonMarsh]

OK, let's look at what might be possible if I strike it rich under the sofa cushions, and just for shear bragging rights and ultra low HD3, what happens if we try to go with the the PuriFi PPT8.0X04?

Well, I actually ran some base numbers back in mid May when the part was preview announced, and this might be a fairly "optimum" solution- from a performance viewpoint, but not from ease of implementation.

170L, with 8x RSS265PR, using 350G grams MMS per PR, 200W total input power




This results in a peak excursion of about 7.5 mm at 36-42 Hz.

But, my, where would we put all those PR's, or the 170L enclosure? Can we set our sights a little lower and still come up with something interesting with ludicrously low HD3 between 150Hz and 1200Hz? What about incorporating a little bit of Modula Xtreme thinking into this?

120L with 4x RSS265PR, 275g MMS per PR, net series resistance in crossover < 0.5 ohms




Still have a fairly good sensitivity and reasonable extension, but a softer roll off, still with Fb below 30Hz.

Gee, what if we want to same some money on the LF crossover inductors... just for fun...


120L with 4x RSS265PR, 275g per PR, net series resistance in LF crossover of 1 ohm...




Interesting...


OK, just for the heck of it, let's take it to an extreme, explore the outer limits...




Still some reasonable sensitivity, but definitely more of a rock and roll alignment, as regards the overall balance. Still an Fb of 28Hz, so reasonable control of things.

This sort of reminds me of Goldilocks and the three bears. But I think I kind of like #2.

[tktran]

Say what? is that with ONE PTT8.0X and 4 passive radiators?

[ergo]

I'm also a F360 user for a long time and the personal/free tier has still been ok even with the limitations they added... but I got interested in this Shapr3D on iPad topic.

It is quite fun and indeed very interesting how the GUI can be adapted for a pen and finger instead of the mouse. Makes quite a nice uncluttered workspace to work in. They also have good getting started videos, so getting the basics can be done with reasonable time and the logic how it works is not so different from F360.

As long as F360 remains allowing full quality 3D export and CNC post process, that will remain my main tool, but would have to practice and think about Shapr3D too. Taking that on iPad along to summer cottage or travel is way easier than laptop. And it did run ok even on latest iPad AIR (latest today) instead of Pro.

The Basic/Free tier is only good how on screen modeling and learning though. The 3D export really is "low quality"




Closer one is Shapr3D free version export vs F360 export on back..

[JonMarsh]

4 PTT8.04 and 4 passive radiators. Sorry for any confusion

[JonMarsh]

I'm also a F360 user for a long time and the personal/free tier has still been ok even with the limitations they added... but I got interested in this Shapr3D on iPad topic.

It is quite fun and indeed very interesting how the GUI can be adapted for a pen and finger instead of the mouse. Makes quite a nice uncluttered workspace to work in. They also have good getting started videos, so getting the basics can be done with reasonable time and the logic how it works is not so different from F360.

As long as F360 remains allowing full quality 3D export and CNC post process, that will remain my main tool, but would have to practice and think about Shapr3D too. Taking that on iPad along to summer cottage or travel is way easier than laptop. And it did run ok even on latest iPad AIR (latest today) instead of Pro.

The Basic/Free tier is only good how on screen modeling and learning though. The 3D export really is "low quality"

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32187[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]32188[/ATTACH]

Closer one is Shapr3D free version export vs F360 export on back..

Agree 150%, I'm using the single computer single user Shapr3D version, costs $240 for the first year for me- originally, that was the entry level version stripped of many file export formats and 2D technical files, but they changed their licensing model and now that covers the full feature set, but it's on a per computer basis.

I have it on my M1 Mac mini, and it runs great, but I'd like to be able to work with it on my 2020 Mac Pro. That would cost another $240 per year. That would still be cheaper than the paid hobbyist version of Fusion360 I used to use, since the doubled the license price.

It's tricky finding the right combination of useful features and price one is willing to pay. Steve is still on Fusion 360, and probably should remain that way- from my version of Shapr3D, I can export a lot of useful file format for him. We'll just have to see how this works out.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the cheapest CAD program other than Fusion360 that can import Marcel Batik's waveguide STEP or STL files without getting severe indigestion. My Shark 12 can, too, but it's more expensive.

I suppose I really could just keep working with Shark, which is pretty old school in comparison, and I'm used to that mode of operation and interface, but after having used Fusion360 and tasting some of how Shapr3D works (a bigger adjustment in operating concepts for me) I think I need to move forward... hard to knock Siemens Parasolid, too.

[Steve Manning]

Agree 150%, I'm using the single computer single user Shapr3D version, costs $240 for the first year for me- originally, that was the entry level version stripped of many file export formats and 2D technical files, but they changed their licensing model and now that covers the full feature set, but it's on a per computer basis.

I have it on my M1 Mac mini, and it runs great, but I'd like to be able to work with it on my 2020 Mac Pro. That would cost another $240 per year. That would still be cheaper than the paid hobbyist version of Fusion360 I used to use, since the doubled the license price.

It's tricky finding the right combination of useful features and price one is willing to pay. Steve is still on Fusion 360, and probably should remain that way- from my version of Shapr3D, I can export a lot of useful file format for him. We'll just have to see how this works out.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the cheapest CAD program other than Fusion360 that can import Marcel Batik's waveguide STEP or STL files without getting severe indigestion. My Shark 12 can, too, but it's more expensive.

I suppose I really could just keep working with Shark, which is pretty old school in comparison, and I'm used to that mode of operation and interface, but after having used Fusion360 and tasting some of how Shapr3D works (a bigger adjustment in operating concepts for me) I think I need to move forward... hard to knock Siemens Parasolid, too.

As long as the Hobby version allows me to do what I need to in terms of CAD & CAM I'll stay put, at the moment it's free. I do not need the stuff that comes with the full blown paid version. In general, I don't like subscription based software, since the rates do nothing but go up. The one other option I was looking into as a one time purchase, was Rhino along with a CAM plug in. Not super cheap but in the long run would be the far better deal.